


it's not the way i’m picturing, no

by silentghosts



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Alternate Universe - College/University, F/F, Miscommunication, Mutual Pining, a truly excessive about of cheek kissing, everyones a girl, less maths than you would expect
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-17
Updated: 2018-02-17
Packaged: 2019-03-20 06:55:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13712310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silentghosts/pseuds/silentghosts
Summary: When Ryan eventually publishes her PHD thesis its under the title of "An Application of Machine Learning for the Identification of Exceptional Female Players".A story of falling in love, with each other, despite what the odds tell you.





	it's not the way i’m picturing, no

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thistidalwave](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thistidalwave/gifts).



> Thanks to Amye and Em who held my hand, cheered me on, and called me out when I ended 5 scenes the exact same way. Also to 'what time is this o'clock' twitter who held my hand through me naming this fake thesis that I desperately wish was real. Do not ask me how many academic papers I read in the writing of this its upsetting.

It’s late winter, and yet still Ryan finds herself all but sprinting across campus at twenty past ten on a Monday morning. Some may have thought that by now, after spending 7 years at U of A, Ryan would have worked out how to act like a functioning human. However, if you were to ask Ryan, the best thing about being a PhD student was that you no longer have to attend classes. That and still being able to get student-priced drinks. Sure, there where a lot of shitty things about being a PHD student: lack of funding, copious amounts of ramen, and an impending sense of doom... But not having to get up on Monday morning and haul yourself to class? Priceless.

Still Ryan finds herself halfway across campus at twenty past ten on a Monday morning because while she didn’t have class, she did have simulations to run, papers to mark and general office hours this afternoon before Jordan swings into town tomorrow morning for her conference on Thursday. And she still had to attend hockey practice on Wednesday night. Which is to say that Ryan wasn’t paying a single bit of attention when she all but bowled into the person coming the other way, coffee flying everywhere and Ryan’s papers, which she had taken home with the misguided intention that she was going to spend her entire weekend marking, scattered across the slightly frozen path. 

“Oh fuck, I’m so sorry,” a voice says from somewhere to her left as Ryan tries not to think about how much her ass hurts and also how much time she's going to have to spend reprinting all those paper. 

“It’s chill, I’m the one who wasn’t paying attention,” Ryan says as a hand comes into view, a head of messy blond hair attached that Ryan has spent copious hours tracking around the ice. “I’ll buy you a drink on Saturday after you win to make up for it.”

“Oh fuck, of course it’s just you, Nuge. I thought I had actually spilt coffee on someone like, important,” Connor laughs, shoving at her shoulder as Ryan does her best to look offended. 

“Shouldn’t you have class now or something? I hear that's what undergraduate degrees are like,” Ryan chirps, ignoring the way that Connors’ fingers brush against hers as she hands Ryan back her papers, admittedly ground-wet and coffee-stained. 

“Oh shut up, I don’t have class until 11, so if anything you’re the one running late,” Connor paused, one eyebrow raised so dramatically Ryan can’t help but laugh.

“Sure, sure, but I’m not really running late, more so running behind my personal schedule after someone convinced me to come out with the team yesterday.” It’s not a lie. Connor post-win is almost impossible to resist, all flushed cheeks and pent-up adrenaline, her hair falling messily out of the ponytail she keeps it in beneath her helmet.

“Hey, that game was over by 11. You had all afternoon to mark papers - it’s not on me if you sat in your apartment and watched Gossip Girl for the 50th time,” Connor says, knocking their shoulders together as if Connor hasn’t been part of those rewatches on road trips more than once. “Anyway, I should let you get going. I’ve got Woodcroft for this next class and you know how she is.” 

Before Ryan can even bring herself to gather a response about how she doesn’t know Woodcroft since she is a Math student, Connor’s already halfway down the path, ponytail swinging, and Ryan still has her half-empty coffee in her hand. 

The coffee turns out to be a much-needed blessing since upon arriving at the office it becomes obvious that one of the simulations she’d set to run over the weekend had crashed, which is a problem that needs fixing ASAP. She also has an email from McTavish saying that she needs to schedule an advisory meeting with him sometime today, which Ryan had been strategically delaying until she could work out what was wrong with the latest set of numbers. 

\----

By the time Ryan pulls into the airport arrivals zone not even 24 hours later, she feels like she's been put through a meat-grinder, with her meeting with McTavish pretty much boiling down to “if it’s not working the way you want it to, you need to find another way,” which is the least useful advice the man has ever given her. On top of that less than helpful meeting, her code had bugged up for the second time in as many days. 

“You look like shit,” Jordan says in lieu of a greeting, dumping her backpack through the window before opening the door from the inside. 

“Not all of us can have fancy research assistants,” Ryan says, flipping her off even though she knows that Jordan worked damn hard to convince the faculty that she deserved a research assistant and that Mattie is brilliant according to all accounts.

“Yeah, well not all of us can talk to machines better than people,” Jordan says, and Ryan shrugs. “How’s your thing going, anyway? Taylor mentioned that you had a bug.”

“I only mentioned it to Taylor so she would stop asking about Davo,” Ryan snaps, hand gripping the steering wheel as she pulls them into traffic. 

“How is everyone’s favourite wonder girl,” Jordan grins as Ryan rolls her eyes, already knowing exactly what’s coming. “She made you fuck your notes up again with her ‘fucking pretty hands,’ I believe your wording was.”

“That was once, and also she's four years younger than me, you asshole,” Ryan says, resolutely not blushing and making a note to try and avoid mentioning Connor in the next four days, “Anyway, don't you have better things to do than question me on my life choices?”

“Oh, honey,” Jordan pats her shoulder condescendingly, “my favourite part of the day is questioning you on your life choices.” She's not wrong. Ever since she and Taylor all but adopted Ryan halfway through their second year when she had finally gathered up the courage to turn up at team practice and tell them all their stats were shit. To be fair, the entire team was shit that year, so maybe it wasn’t their fault, but Taylor had been oddly endeared by this 5’1” mess of nothing wrapped up in a Canucks scarf in the dead of the Edmonton winter and where Taylor went, well, science had shown that Jordan was sure to follow. 

\----

It’s during office hours on Tuesday that Connor knocks on the door frame, sliding into the seat opposite Ryan with a coffee in hand and a grin on her face. 

“What,” Ryan asks, eyes feeling heavy after a long afternoon of combing over her code trying to work out what about the sample data was making it act so irrationally. She's been thinking she's had it for what feels like forever now, but every time she actually gets close, something else crops up and kills it. 

“Coffee. For you,” Connor explains patiently, sliding it across the space between them as Ryan fights the impulse to reach out and snatch it from her grip.

“I ran into Jordan at lunch. She said you were stressing out again,” Connor elaborates, as Ryan grins around the lip of the cup, the bittersweet taste of the double-shot chai hitting her taste buds. 

“I can't believe you know my shitty coffee order,” she laughs, ignoring the way her cheeks flush as she says it. 

“Yeah, well, you’re always leaving your cups scattered around the rink and I took a shot in the dark and decided if your day was bad enough for Jordan to tell me about it- then it probably deserved a double shot of caffeine”.

“Seriously, though, are you doing okay? Is there anything I can do to help,” Connor asks, her voice soft as she reaches out to lightly touch Ryan’s arm. 

“Not unless you suddenly became an expert in applied statistics and sports analysis overnight, Con.” Ryan sighs. “But thank you for asking. I really appreciate it”. 

“Hey, I can't do the maths stuff, but it’s all hockey right,” Connor says, leaning forward in her seat, both her distractingly toned arms now resting on the table. “Come on, explain it to me, let me see if I can help.”

And well, Connor has helped before. Heck, Connor was half the reason behind her research, this theory on the identification and development of exceptional players. She almost made the Olympic team at 16, during Ryan's final year of undergrad, a late addition after she had blown everyone away at U18 camp. She hadn’t even turned 17 yet when they dropped her from the centralisation roster. At the time Ryan remembers wondering what would have happened if someone had spotted her earlier, if she hadn’t been stuck in the midget leagues. What if anyone gave enough of a fuck about women's hockey to work out a way that a kid like that never slips through the cracks again. 

It seems like hours later that Jordan finds them, heads tucked together on the same side of Ryan's desk, the code long since abandoned for game tape.

“Okay, but if we have the winger go in tight here, that's going to draw the traffic away from the center and..” Connors is murmuring, fingers flying across the touch screen and Ryan, Ryan can't help but stare at her.

“Hey all,” Jordan says bursting through the door, take out bags in hand. “I was here to drag Nuge out of her den of misery and back to her place with Thai, but if you want to come with, Connor, I think I have enough to share.”

“It’s cool, I should be getting back anyway. I have an early class tomorrow anyway,” Connor says, hastily moving to shove her laptop into her backpack. 

“You sure? I think I probably still have some of those ready meals you like in the freezer if you dont want Thai” Ryan says, reaching out to touch Connor’s arm. She knows they’ve been together all afternoon, but she’s still reluctant to let Connor leave. 

“Nah, I should get heading,” she says with a smile, but it’s the one that Ryan knows is usually reserved for big games and press attention, not for Ryan and her office. 

“You’re coming to training tomorrow right, Ebs,” she asks on the way out the door, and even Jordan can only dumbly nod, the change of emotions in the room rapid enough to give even bystanders whiplash. 

“Ry,” She eventually says, all soft and sad like she knows something. 

“Don't,” Ryan says, because Jordan doesn’t know jack shit. No one does. 

\----

The thing is, Ryan and Connor had a fling. Well, almost had a fling. It had started in the lead-up to the Olympics, with long drives to Calgary, crashing in each other’s rooms, and a pile of Connor’s ready-made meals stacked up in Ryan's freezer. It ended with the two of them at some packed bar two blocks from campus, Ryan chickening out at the last minute, and Connor going home with some boy from the Golden Bears who was twice her height and half her skill level. They didn’t talk about it after. Connor went home to Toronto and Ryan buried herself in her research, trying to ignore how much of it was about the one person she was trying to get out of her head.

When spring came and Connor had shown up at school again, all happy smiles, joyfully flashing the rings tattooed across her ribs just under her bra strap at anyone who would look. She had acted like nothing had changed, that they were just Connor and Ryan, just friends, just the way they’d always been. So Ryan took Connor’s lead and tried to keep her distance and to soothe her breaking heart. 

\----

“So what even happened,” Jordan eventually asks on the way to practice on Wednesday, the two of them crammed in Ryan’s shitty old car that she’s had since second year. 

“What happened with what,” Ryan evades, as always. 

“Connor,” Jordan sighs, and Ryan fights the way her shoulders tense. “Come on, you guys were good last year. You were practically in each other's pockets, which is saying something given that she was in Calgary for most of it.”

“Nothing happened. That's the truth. Maybe I thought something was going to, but Jordan... she's still an undergrad, she’s going to be a star. I just play with numbers.”

“Don’t give me that shit. Connor loves your numbers, even if she doesn’t fully understand them,” Jordan says, reaching out to place her hand on Ryan’s shoulder. “Shit, Nuge, your entire paper is practically a love letter to her and it’s not even half finished yet.”

“I tried, Jordan, I tried last year when she wasn’t a student, when she was just Con. I got to watch an entire fucking country fall in love with her the way I did and at the end of the day I got to watch her leave the bar with someone else.”

They're in the parking lot now, heater still blaring as snow falls softly outside. 

“Oh,” Jordan says,, finally understanding why Ryan hasn’t wanted to talk about this, why she has avoided it for months. 

“Look, I get it. You and Taylor are perfect. It took 5 years and the two of you literally moving out on each other, but you made it through,” Ryan says, hands clenching the steering wheel. “But Connor’s not Taylor. The two of you were always going to be together. Connor was never a sure thing. She’s an against all odds thing, and we missed our chance.”

The car lapses into silence, Ryan busying herself on his phone for a second, not quite willing to leave but also not willing to continue the conversation. She gets where Jordan is coming from, knows she just wants her to be as happy and domestic as she and Taylor are, but she's run the scenario through his head a million times and there’s no way she comes out on top. There’s the power imbalance thing, and the Connor McDavid: Savior of Women's Hockey thing. And just because Connor decided to do her undergrad in Edmonton for some unclear reason, everyone knows she's destined for the Furies, for Toronto. And Ryan, well, Ryan's destined to fade into mediocrity and occasionally make a statistically meaningful tweet. Best case scenario, she gets hired by a team. And if the men's teams barely care about analytics, women’s are worse. 

Eventually Jordan pulls open her door, waving across the lot, as Ryan head snaps up, spotting Connor not even five meters from the car, a small smile on her face, snowflakes clinging to her toque.

“Hey, Ebs! Please tell me I get to kick your ass in repeated sprints today,” Connor shouts, jogging up towards them as Ryan pulls herself out of the car, arms full of papers that she needs to look over during today's practice. 

“What the fuck Ry, repeat sprints,” Jordan shouts, indignant, and Ryan can’t help but chuckle at her as Connor comes over, taking half her papers with a quiet smile. 

“I needed more data on it, and the easiest way to run a mini test is with these guys.” Ryan replies, bumping the door closed with her hip, struggling to reach her keys where they were stashed in her back pocket. 

“You’re going to drop the fucking papers, Ry. Let me,” Connor says, and before Ryan can voice her objections, Connor is slipping her spare hand into Ryan's back pocket as Jordan lets out a shocked, choked noise. 

“Well, I fucking hate the both of you and I’m going inside to find people who appreciate me and my ability to lie in a stationary position for seven hours,” Jordan jokes awkwardly, narrowly avoiding slipping on a patch of ice, and sets off at a ridiculous pace towards the door. 

“I miss them sometimes you know,” Connor says as she locks the car, slipping Ryan's keys into her own pocket. “Like, I know Taylor got the scholarship in New Jersey, but like, I wish they had stayed like you did.”

“Hey, it’s not like you’re not leaving at the end of this year, Miss Superstar,” Ryan tries to laugh, ignoring how her chest feels tight and her arm tingles where it keeps brushing against Connor’s even through a dozen layers of fabric. “You started thinking about your preference yet? The draft is only a couple of months away”.

“I don't know, Toronto, maybe? I know that’s what Stromer’s putting down, but...” Connor pauses, and the air feels charged even as they slip through the rink doors. “...but I’ve been looking at Calgary”.

“Calgary?” Ryan asks, her heart lodged in her throat, almost afraid she’s hallucinating this moment.

“Yeah, well, they have the national team, and the facilities are great.” Connor says, her arms gesticulating wildly, and Ryan can’t help but smile at how much she loves this, how obvious Connor adores hockey with every fibre of her being. 

“Besides,” Connor adds, reaching out to bump her shoulder at Ryan's, her cheeks pink from the cold outside. “How else am I supposed to help you with your numbers?”

And then she's pushing through the doors into the locker room, leaving Ryan standing in the hallway gaping, her own cheeks bright red, and not just from the cold. 

\----

“Again,” Ryan yells, blowing her whistle and ducking back behind the laptop she has set up on the bench, the numbers lighting up across the page as everyone crosses the line, chests heaving. 

“Are we fucking done yet, Nuge,” Jordan yells from where she's leaning against Drai, her hair a tangled mess. “Not all of us are in ‘mid-season form’! Like, fuck you, some weeks I don't even make it to beer league”.

“Give me one second,” Ryan says, leaning down to scroll through her spreadsheet, checking for anything that looks remotely out of place. “I think we’re good. Nothing looks super hinky at first glance, but I won't know for sure until I plug it all into the system tomorrow”.  
Ryan’s head is buried in her laptop when Connor skates over, fixing her ponytail before swinging herself over the boards onto the bench.

“So, how’d I look out there,” she asks playfully, and Ryan almost says “beautiful” until she catches herself, choking out a strangled good and trying to ignore the way her cheeks heat up. 

“I’m trying to get a bit more forward acceleration on my left side you know, and I just not sure don't think I'm getting the angle quite right.” 

“Uh huh,” Ryan says absent-mindedly, making sure to save all her files as she shuts them, before turning off the tracking equipment. 

“So, uh, what do you think about Calgary.” Connor asks, somehow looking small despite all her hockey gear, and hesitant, as if this is the most important question she had ever asked.

“I...I didn’t know you were even thinking about it,” Ryan says, and clearly that’s not the answer Connor wanted because she immediately tenses up, the little space between her brows getting all pinched like it does when she can’t quite work something out.

“Well you know, it’s just a thought. Doesn’t matter anyway, I guess.” she says, turning and storming down the tunnel, leaving Ryan standing there with a pile of papers, her laptop and no idea what just happened. 

\----

Ryan doesn’t get a chance to talk to Connor again for almost a week. She's already left the locker room by the time Ryan gets in there to drag Jordan out and remind her she has a conference tomorrow. That weekend, Connor is like a ghost, slipping out of every room Ryan walks into like she's contagious or something. After Jordan flies back to New York on Monday it’s even more obvious, Connor missing from her office hours, from the gym, from Ryan's text messages. It’s like last March all over again and this giant void in Ryan’s life she hadn’t even realized Connor was filling was gaping wider every day. 

Maybe that’s why, despite the fact that Ryan had enough data to get her through the next couple of weeks, she turned up at training on Wednesday anyway, arriving late and setting herself up in the top rows of the rink for most of practice, laptop resting on her knees while she tinkers on a presentation she has to give in Toronto in just under a month’s time. 

Connor’s on the ice, of course, helmet on and eyes focused as she takes shot after shot, and then line rush after line rush. She looks almost angry, and if Ryan didn’t know her better she would think she was channelling all her frustration in practice, but as it stands it’s just there, simmering under the surface making every face-off a bit more vicious. 

Ryan waits until after practice is over, everyone straggling off the ice in dribs and drabs until it’s just Connor and the net and a pile of pucks, her helmet off as she levels an endless barrage of shots at the net. 

It’s not until Ryan’s standing on the ice that Connor looks up, panicked eyes meeting hers as the latest shot rattles off the crossbar. 

“Hey,” Ryan says, waving awkwardly, second-guessing why she even came down here. 

“I thought you weren’t coming today,” Connor replies, scooping a puck up with her stick and lobbing it at the net lacrosse style. 

Ryan shrugs, “I wasn't supposed to be.”

“Oh,” Connor says, this time stickhandling around Ryan before shooting vaguely in the direction of the net before coming to a stop in front of her. 

“I wanted to ask you something. About Calgary,” Ryan says.

Connors brow pinches. “Okay”. 

“Why did you ask me about it?”

“There's someone I like here, and I don't know if I'm ready to leave.”

“Oh,” Ryan says, mind automatically flashing to the boy on the Golden Bears. She didn’t think they were a thing, and last time Connor was with someone, a girl from her media class in second year, she wasn’t exactly shy about it, but maybe this time it was serious. “You should bring them to meet the team,” she adds, trying to sound supportive even though it feels like the ground just dropped out from underneath her. 

“They, ah, sort of already know the team” Connor mumbles, arms crossed awkwardly across her chest. “But you don't think it’s a dumb idea? Staying in Alberta for someone - not that I'm just staying for them! Obviously the Inferno have great facilities and everything”. Connor trails off. 

“If it would make you happy, I think it’s a great idea,” Ryan says softly, reaching out to pull Connor in, her skates sliding towards Ryan as she wraps her arms around her. “You’re going to be fantastic wherever you go.”

“Really,” Connor whispers, and suddenly she's that tiny girl that Ryan met that first time who made her sit down and explain what all those numbers meant. 

“Really, Con, you deserve the fucking world”. The words are barely out of her mouth before Connor is leaning down pressing a gentle kiss against her cheek before pulling back to grin at her, gums showing and all. 

“See you in a minute,” she asks.

“Yeah,” Ryan replies, reaching up to brush her fingers against her cheek, the skin still warm where Connor’s lips had been. 

\----

By the time Connor makes it out of the locker room, most of the team is gone, the head start giving them a clear advantage. There are a couple of them left, getting in some extra weight time, but for the most part, the building is deserted when Connor trips out the locker room, almost knocking Ryan over with her equipment bag.

“Fuck,” Connor says, her eyes lighting up as she rights herself. “You stayed.”

“Of course I stayed,” Ryans says, because why would she not? When has she ever bailed on Connor before?

“I know, I just-” Connor mumbles, and Ryan can't help but note how her cheeks are still flushed from her shower. “I don’t know, I’m just glad you stayed, I guess”

Ryan doesn’t know what to say, so she just stares absentmindedly at the hair matted across Connor’s forehead, at the messy fall of her braid over of her neck, and tries not to ignore how she knows what her lips felt like against her cheek. She’s in a wore-out Olympic tee and sweatpants, but Ryan still thinks she’s the most beautiful woman in the world. Ryan’s a fucking goner. 

“You want to grab dinner,” Connor asks, smiling softly. 

“Uh,” Ryan pauses, because she does have papers she needs to grade and she should try to get to sleep before midnight sometime this century, but Connor’s looking at her with these big, hopeful eyes and saying no to those eyes has never been an option. “I don’t know, do you have anything than ready meals in your fridge?”

Connor laughs and Ryan feels her insides light up. “I don't know, do you have Thai leftovers from yesterday or not?”

“How do you even know about my Thai leftovers,” Ryan asks, because fuck, she doesn’t get Thai that much, and if she does it’s only because she’s a PhD student with too little free time and cooking skills that are mediocre at best.

“Saw it on your insta story. You always order too much,” Connor grins, grabbing Ryan’s hand and dragging her towards the door. 

“I came with Lou, so you’re driving, I guess,” she says as they step out into the frigid Alberta air, Ryan’s focus narrowed down to where their hands are joined together as Connor pulls them across the parking lot.

\----

The thing is, Ryan expected the cheek kissing to be a one-off thing. She’d told Connor what she needed to hear and that was her way of saying thanks. But she did it again that night, her lips brushing against Ryan’s face as she whispered “Sleep well’ before dashing outside to get her Uber. And then again the next morning, showing up cheerily at Ryan’s office before her first class of the day with coffee, a smile, and a kiss on the way out the door that left Ryan standing there frozen well after Connor’s hurried footsteps had stopped echoing down the hall.

Ryan’s not proud to admit it, but she’s sort of falling apart inside over it. It’s one thing to have to deal with the knowledge that Connor liked someone, liked them enough to give up Toronto and stay in Alberta for them, but the fact that she had decided that this is a Thing They Do Now, is eating Ryan up. Connor’s not an overly tactile person. Sure, she’ll hang all over someone as much as the next hockey player, but apart from a few helmet kisses after some truly fantastic goals Ryan can’t remember the last time she kissed someone without the intent of going home with them. 

Friday rolls around and Ryan thinks that’s it, but when she arrives at her office tired and harried-looking after sleeping in and barely making it to her class on time, Connor’s sitting curled up in her chair, nose buried in a pile of notes, highlighter poking out from between her lips and a paper bag on the desk in front of her. 

“Oh hey, saw you had a rough morning so I grabbed you a grilled cheese from the cafeteria ‘cause I figured you hadn’t eaten yet,” she says, grabbing the paper bag and wave it around.

“God, you’re a saint,” Ryan breathes, and she’s not even going to ask how Connor knew because her stomach had been grumbling all through the second hour of her class in protest of her skipping breakfast. 

Connor laughs softly as Ryan reach out to grab it, her body halfway across Connor’s.

“What,” she questions, and then Connor’s kissing her cheek again, still laughing as she pulls away, tucking the bag into Ryan’s hand.

“You’re welcome,” she sing-songs as she slips out of the chair, causing Ryan to nearly topple to floor as it swings. “I’ll see you after my class maybe? Text me if you're super busy”.

“Yeah, okay,” Ryan finds herself muttering, as Connor waves already halfway out the door.

\----

In the end, Ryan texts Connor that she’s bogged down checking for yet another bug in her code, and that she will see her tomorrow before the game. Connor replies with a sad face and two kissy faces and Ryan actively chooses to not read into it, but her lovestruck brain doesn’t make it easy. 

In fact, it’s not until just before warm-ups that they see each other again, Ryan all but locked in the video room as she points out something she noticed regarding the other team's penalty kill the night before, Connor stuck playing captain. Ryan manages to escape in time to pop by the tunnel on the way up to her spot in the stands to say hi to the girls before they head out onto the ice.

“Good luck out there today, Connor,” she says when she gets to almost the front of the line, only Cammy further down the tunnel, already locked onto goalie mode. 

“Thanks, Ry,” Connor says, an infectious grin plastered across her face, and Ryan finds herself grinning back, swept up in everything that is Connor McDavid.

“I’ll get you a goal, eh?” she says, and Ryan feels her heart steadily beating out of her chest, tears almost welling in her eyes as Connor leans down to peck her on the cheek again. The effect Connor has on her is truly unfair. But then Connor’s pulling back and smiling softly at her before yelling out “Let’s get this done, girls,” and turning to face the ice, every last ounce of softness gone as she turns into some type of warrior, and Ryan feels special that those last seconds before she hit the ice where spent on her. Not Connor McDavid: hockey goddess. Just Connor, strong and gentle and brilliant. Connor. 

Ryan can feel tears threatening again, but there are numbers to do, metrics to record, and half a dozen stats students waiting up in the rafters for her to give them their marching orders in the name of class credit points. She can worry about her overflowing emotions later. 

Of course, Connor scores, because statistically it was bound to happen and because she’s just that good. She’s pointing up at the box and blowing a kiss and suddenly it’s all too much. Ryan excuses herself to the bathroom, dry-heaving as the tears she’s managed to keep at bay all game run tracks down her face until she’s forced to admit that she’s of no use here anymore. Ducking out midway through the second, she pulls her scarf pulled up over her face to hide the tear stains.

\----

She’s not even halfway home before she messages Taylor while she’s stuck at a red light to ask if she can call. Sure enough, her phone buzzes just as she pushes her way through the front door. 

“Hey Nugget, how’s the game,” Taylor asks as the video call is still connecting, Ryan’s face still a pixelated blur. 

She can tell the minute the image comes through on Taylor’s end because her face drops, her voice soft as she whispers, “Fuck, Ryan, are you okay”. 

That's all it takes for her to start crying again. White hot tears burn their way down her face as Taylor makes soothing noises from halfway across the continent.

Eventually the tears dry up, leaving only gentle hiccups as Ryan makes a determined effort to further cocoon herself in the blankets on the couch, trying her hardest to ignore how they smell like Connor. 

“She likes someone, Hallsy, she likes someone else enough to stay here for them and I thought it wouldn't hurt but it does,” she eventually managed to get out between heaving breaths, breaking the silence as she sobs gently down the phone, Taylors quiet “oh honey” barely audible in the background.

“And then she keeps kissing me on the cheek, and it’s not fair, but I just can’t tell her that,” Ryan whines, her voice rising slowly with every word. Taylor nods reassuringly on her screen. “Like, she’s just always there, bringing me coffee and kissing me on the cheek, and getting me food when she knows I haven’t eaten and it’s just… it’s too much. I don’t know if I can handle it anymore. I don’t want it to stop because it makes me feel special, but every time it does it hurts a little bit more”.

“Since when does Connor do kisses? Since when is that a thing,” Taylor asks, only sounding mildly offended. 

“On the cheek,” Ryan clarifies, “and she does it all the time now! I get that it’s a friendly thing, not an invitation, but she did it before warm-ups and then when she scored she blew a kiss up at me in the box and I can’t take it anymore”. There’s a fresh flood of tears as her breath hitches, and Taylor sighs sadly into the phone. 

“Ryan, I hate to say this, but I can’t remember Connor kissing anyone on the cheek,” she says, eye steady on Ryan's. “Ever.”

“But…. she likes that guy on the Golden Bears,” Ryan protests, because she can see where Taylor’s going but it’s not true. It can’t be true. 

“Did she say that,” Taylor asks, “explicitly?”

“No, but I haven't seen her with anyone else since the party after the Olympics, so it has to be him, right?” Ryan says, hating the way her voice shakes, the way she makes it sound like a question.

“Okay, let’s phrase it this way. Look at the data, Ryan. What does it tell you?”

“I don’t know okay, Taylor. Look, if you’re not going to help, please just hang up,” Ryan begs, the phone shaking in her hand.

“Okay, Ry,” Taylor acquiesces, “But please think about it, seriously,” she continues, eyes pleading. “For me.” 

“‘Kay,” Ryan barely gets out, because she can feel the tears welling up again, and at this point she would do anything to get off the phone. “Love you, bye.” 

And then she’s hitting the end button, curling in on herself, and crying again, just letting the tears stream out therapeutically.

Several hours later, Ryan has, in fact, not thought about it. 

Instead, she’s cooked herself KD, marked four papers, and managed a half-hearted attempt at cleaning the living room before she realises that yeah, Taylor’s right. And yeah, she should probably think about it. 

The thing is, Ryan’s been in love with Connor for so long. And maybe it wasn’t love love in the way it is now, all-encompassing and almost impossible to manage. But there was love laced into every number that Ryan wrote trying to sum up just how extraordinary Connor is. There was love in simmering under ever video review, when she went over the tape with Connor by her side an extra nine times trying to work out how to perfect that play. There was love in the way she smiled in the stats room when Connor pulled it off, the impossible, again and again. 

And the thing about being in love with someone is that it’s hard to see clearly through rose-tinted glasses, especially when for so long, Ryan had been convinced that there was no way that Connor was looking at Ryan the same way. 

But she’s considering Calgary, and she brings Ryan her shitty coffee on days when she’s feeling run down and half the time she doesn’t even know how Connor knows, she just does. There’s a sweater of Ryan’s from undergrad that she knows lives in Connor’s cupboard, and Connor has said she loves Ryan’s numbers more than once. Maybe Connor just doesn’t show it in the same way Ryan does. Maybe she shows it in gentle smiles, and sandwiches, and knowing when someone needs to pull Ryan out of her own head. And maybe, just maybe, Calgary wasn’t for some dumb boy on the Golden Bears, but for the girl she kissed, face glowing like she had just accomplished something great. 

\----

Ryan’s at the rink early the next morning, the clock in her car not even reading 6 am yet as she pulls into the lot, two coffees in her center console. 

By the time Connor arrives, clambering out of the car she shares with Drai, Ryan’s hands are feeling more than a little numb even through the gloves, her face getting hit by the wind where she is standing just outside the door. 

“Hey,” Connor smiles, practically skipping up to her despite the icy temperatures. “Is that for me?”

 

“Yeah,” Ryan says. 

“Can we talk for a second,” she adds, summoning the courage to reach up and press her lips against the corner of Connors’ so quick it almost didn’t happen, her face lighting up and her cheeks redden in response. 

“Of course,” Connor says, bumping their arms together as they head inside, Ryan steering them towards the ice after dumping Connor’s bag in the hallway. 

Sitting on the bench facing each other, Ryan suddenly doesn’t know what to say because in hindsight the fact that she didn’t see it earlier was monumentally stupid.

“Hey,” Connor eventually says, reaching out to lace their hands together over the top of their coffees. “Ry, what is it? You can tell me.”

“You like me,” she says after a few more seconds tick by, watching the way a blush spreads across Connor’s cheekbones like a wildfire.

“Yeah-” Connor replies easily, smiling 

“You,” Ryan says again, “like me”

“If it’s too much, tell me. I know I was a lot after the Olympics so I’m trying to take it slow, and you seemed to be okay with it, but-”. The words are tumbling out of Connor’s mouth now and she’s clutching even tighter at Ryan’s hand and Ryan can’t take it anymore.

“I love you,” she blurts out, and Connor’s face goes still, her hand dropping.

“So... you don’t hate me,” Connor asks. 

“God, no! Connor, I’ve spent this entire week having a meltdown over the fact that I thought you liked that boy on the Golden Bears.”

“The boy on the-” Connor starts before catching herself, eyes narrowing. “You didn’t leave the bar that night, did you.”

Ryan shakes her head. “No,” she says softly, “I needed to go to the bathroom while you were getting drinks, and when I came back you were making out with that guy on the dancefloor.”

“Fuck,” Connor mutters, hands reaching back out to gather Ryan’s up as she scoots closer on the bench. “I thought you left. I came back and you were gone. That's why I kissed him. I thought you didn’t want me”

And that’s it. Ryan moves the rest of the way forward until their knees are touching. 

“Connor, you are, without a doubt, the most amazing person I have ever met,” Ryan says, as Connors breath hitches, her fingers twitching nearly imperceptibly in Ryan’s grip. “I’m writing an entire thesis on how brilliant you are at this sport, but I could thousands more about how indescribable you are as a person.”

There's a bang in the hallway, both of them startling for a moment before Connor’s eyes are back on hers. 

“Really,” she asks quietly, as if she can’t believe anyone would think she’s worth the world. 

“God, Con, there’s no one I want more”. And then Ryan’s leaning forward and Connor’s turning her head at just the right time and they’re kissing. The angle’s bad, their noses banging, but it’s Connor, which makes it absolutely perfect. 

“God ,I can’t believe you thought I was dating a Golden Bear. His name was McConnell Ryan,” Connor giggles, leaning forward to rest their foreheads together again. 

“Connor,” Ryan says after they had been sitting there for what feels like forever, just looking at each other. “If you two had gotten married, his name would have been McConnell McDavid”

Then Connor’s pulling back, punching her in the arm with a giant grin on her face, sending both their coffee cups flying in the process.

“Oh fuck,” Ryan exclaims, laughing, doubling over until her head is practically resting in Connor’s lap. She ignores the way her jeans are now soaked with lukewarm coffee. “At least it wasn’t someone important, right.”

And then Connor’s hand is fisting up in her sweater, pulling her in, and their lips are pressing together again as Connor mumbles “Oh my god, you’re such a dork,” and “You’re the most important, okay,” in between presses of her lips. All in all, it seems pretty perfect.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is somehow the most self-indulgent thing I have ever written despite the fact it is for someone else. For Jenny who while writing 30k of Connor McDavid / Other Ryan tweeted "I deserve some fic for all the writing I have done today and there is nothing new". I hope this acts as a suitable reward for your efforts. To read the fic that willed this fic into being despite the two not at all being connected [go here its fabulous](http://archiveofourown.org/works/13710447).


End file.
